Karen Gillan facts

Her cousin - Caitlin Blackwood - plays the young version of Amy on the show.

She can play the piano, and went to the prestigious Italia Conti academy in London but dropped out for a part and ended up pulling pints in Kennington.

She's also appeared in James Nesbitt's 2010 film Outcast.

Why we love Karen Gillan

Karen Gillan might well be a Scottish redhead, but don’t go stereotyping her any further. Having done a bunch of modelling gigs – including one for the similarly flame haired Nicola Roberts’ make-up range – she showed up as part of the cast on The Kevin Bishop Show and nailed a parody of Katy Perry’s I Kissed A Girl amongst other things. See, she’s funny too. And no, she didn’t do it as a ginger Katy Perry.

After that you might have seen Karen Gillan in one of the lead roles of The Well, which was broadcast on BBC Two and then later online when it wasn’t considered good enough to have a slot on the terrestrial channel. Allegedly. She obviously still impressed though, as her next permanent role was her current one: that of Amy Pond – The Doctor’s companion in Doctor Who. Yeah, that made the Christmas special that saw her star alongside Katherine Jenkins one to watch.

It wasn’t Karen Gillan first appearance on the show either, having made one before as a totally different character in an earlier episode. Nowadays she spends a lot of time in the TARDIS travelling around with the Doc. If FHM had one of those we’d come up with Microsoft before Gates. And Google, Facebook, YouTube and EBay while we’re at it. Plus we’d be able to win a shedload on accumulators even if we couldn’t do anything about our team’s results. We’d probably have a word about the existence of Justin Bieber and Jedward too.